Rien ne va plus
by Ariane DeVere
Summary: Mrs Hudson's hip is giving her hell.  The boys are in the hallway.  Mrs H investigates why they've been there for some time.


Her hip was giving her hell tonight and even the soothers weren't doing any more than just take the edge off. It was late at night and there was nothing on the telly to distract her, and she was in too much discomfort to even consider going to bed. She tried dozing in her armchair but every noise outside – a couple arguing in the alley, a barking dog, police sirens in the distance – instantly woke her.

And then the front door slammed. Really, it was too much; did those boys of hers have _no_ consideration when they came home this late? She grumbled and waited for the sound of their feet clattering noisily up the stairs, and then no doubt Sherlock would start pacing up and down for the next hour. Not for the first time she regretted not having the money to have the sitting room fully carpeted to muffle the noise; even though the room was at the front of the house his footsteps on the wooden floor – especially if he kept his shoes on – would reverberate through the entire building and he was never considerate enough to keep to the rug. She was convinced that one day he would thump his feet down so hard that he would go crashing through the ceiling of Speedy's, and she hoped rather venomously that Mr. Chatterjee would be working in the café at the time and that Sherlock would land on top of him.

It took her a few moments to realise that she hadn't heard footsteps on the stairs at all and there was no sound from upstairs. Had they suddenly realised how loud they were being and so had tiptoed up the stairs? No; they would have to take their shoes off and go up in their socks to make no sound at all because even quiet footsteps sounded on the wooden steps – somewhere _else_ she wished she could afford to carpet. So why hadn't they gone upstairs yet?

Worried that one of them might be hurt – it wouldn't be the first time she had gone out and found one of them sitting on the stairs holding a handkerchief to a head wound or nursing a sprained ankle while the other one tended to him – she hauled herself out of the chair with a groan and hobbled to the front door, opening it quietly and peeping out. There was no immediate sign of the boys in the front hallway but she could hear sharp breathing coming from the direction of the stairs. She crept forward past the door to the basement flat and then stopped, pressing her hand to her throat.

At the foot of the stairs, Sherlock was leaning against the wall with his head back and his eyes closed. For a moment she thought that he had some kind of injury to his neck and the doctor was tending to it, but as she took another concerned step forward she realised that John was ... John was ...

Oh my.

John was pressed against his tall flatmate in a very undoctor-like way, and surely there was no medical treatment in existence which involved sucking and nipping on the patient's neck in _that_ way, especially not while breathing heavily and moaning softly while pushing the fingers of one hand into the patient's hair and having the other hand ... well, the other hand was out of sight in front of him but from the disarray of Sherlock's shirt, the hand appeared to be up inside it and she was fairly sure it wasn't simply checking the patient's heartbeat.

Sherlock didn't seem to be considering suing for medical malpractice at any time soon, however, if the blissful look on his face was anything to go by. Indeed, at that moment his jaw fell open, he panted heavily and then he uttered the doctor's name in a breathy groan with such deep undertones that the door to 221C rattled. Reaching up with one hand, he wrapped his fingers around the back of John's head and pulled him even harder onto his neck, grimacing ecstatically as John responded to the encouragement by opening his mouth wider and sucking more firmly. Sherlock whined and ran his fingers down John's head until he reached his neck, then curled his fingers around it and pulled back. John's mouth disengaged from his throat and his head fell back, his eyes closed as he gasped for air.

Sherlock lifted his head from the wall and tilted it forward, his own eyes opening and immediately flickering towards his landlady. Meeting her startled gaze for a brief moment as his free hand reached out and took a firm handful of the doctor's backside, he winked lasciviously at her and then closed his eyes again and lowered his mouth to his flatmate's.

Putting her hand over her mouth to hold back her delighted giggle, and with the pain in her hip completely forgotten, she backed away and quietly closed the door, went through to the kitchen and let herself out in the yard. Smiling happily, she went out the back gate, turned left and made her way into next door's yard, tapping on the kitchen door so that she could demand the twenty quid she was owed from Mrs Turner because their long-term bet was finally over.


End file.
